IBM’s Watson natural language computer can now defeat the best human Jeopardy players. This is quite extraordinary, as unlike chess, which IBM mastered with Deep Blue some years ago, Jeopardy is not a mathematical game. Winning requires knowledge of human society as well as the ability to understand the questions, which are often filled with puns or other tricks. IBM sees the natural language interpreting technology they’ve developed being applied in areas from healthcare to call centres.
Governments really need to start thinking about how they will employ people when computers can do an even greater portion of the tasks that we have so far considered beyond the reach of automation.
